GIOVANNI PIETRO RIZZOLI "GIAMPIETRINO"

(Activo en Lombardía c.1500-1550)

GIOVANNI PIETRO RIZZOLI "GIAMPIETRINO" (Active in Lombardy c.1500-1550) "Ecce Homo"

Oil on panel Provenance: -Private collection, Madrid. There are still many doubts about Giampetrino's personality, but it seems likely that he is Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli and that he was one of Leonardo's disciples during his second stay in Milan (1508-1513), noted as Gian Petro by Leonardo himself in a list of his collaborators. Among the Leonardeschi, Giampetrino was one of the most gifted pupils and a great disseminator of the master's style throughout Lombardy, due to his extensive, albeit uneven, production, as he made numerous versions of the same work with the participation of the workshop. In this case, this unpublished panel is one of the painter's most beautiful and high-quality works, comparable on a technical level with others such as The Death of Cleopatra in the Louvre Museum (RF 2282), or Christ Carrying the Cross (NG3097) and Salome (NG3930) in the National Gallery. All these works, including the Ecce Homo, must have been produced around the years 1510-30 and have many similarities between them, such as the presence of a main model of great beauty and serenity, with striking light eyes, in contrast with the characters that emerge from the dark background, typical of Giampetrino, with a more grotesque physiognomy. These types and contrasts are characteristic of Leonardo's work, as is the modelling with sfumatto, which Giampetrino imitates. However, unlike Leonardo, he tends to use brighter colours, especially in the clothing of the characters, as can be seen in the red and green of this panel, and his works, in general, lack the psychological and intellectual background of the master. There is at least one version similar to this Ecce Homo preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy (see Gelly, C., Nancy, Musee des beaux-arts : peintures italiennes et espagnoles, XIVe - XIXe siècle 2006 , no. 73) in which the figure of Christ is in the same position, and seated on the same wooden throne, although this work lacks the figure of the executioner in the background. It is likely that Giampetrino used cardboard templates for the main figures, which is why they are repeated in many cases. Measurements: 74.5 x 57.5 cm